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OHM LEADER GRIGORE PETRENCO INSISTS ON INVESTIGATING AIR COMPANY’S ACTIVITIES

07 july, 2017
OHM LEADER GRIGORE PETRENCO INSISTS ON INVESTIGATING AIR COMPANY’S ACTIVITIES

“Our Home is Moldova” (OHM) party leader Grigore Petrenco, a member of the previous Moldovan Parliament, believes it is necessary to start an in-depth investigation into the activities of private FlyOne air company, through whose fault (technical failure of an airplane) a flight from Greece was delayed for 36 hours recently.     

The opposition politician stated at a news conference in Infotag that the air company was founded with a multitude of violations with the connivance of the Moldovan authorities and with a direct support rendered to it by a number of high-ranked state officials.    

In 2016, National Civil Aviation Administration (GAGA) Director Mircea Maleca issued an Operation Certificate to FlyOne at the moment when the company did not possess even a single air vessel. Later on, an Airbus-ERAXJ received a Navigation Certificate happily without passing a mandatory check by the manufacturer company and without even being available in Moldova. As it turned out subsequently, the airplane worked intensively in Gambia and Afghanistan – in adverse climatic and technical conditions, said Grigore Petrenco.  

Amazingly, but for nearly a year after that, this very airplane was flying to various European Union countries, having carried thousands of passengers, putting their lives in real danger at each such flight, stressed the politician.

Petrenco told this week’s story with the unlucky Airbus-EK-32002, which, carrying 170 passengers on board, had to return to the Greek airport of Heraklion shortly after takeoff and returned home to Chisinau with a 36-hour delay due to technical problems.  

“Already after that technical accident at the Heraklion Airport, the airplane has already made flights to Milan, Verona and Moscow. On the Wednesday/Thursday night it came from Moscow with a 6-hour delay. The company’s other plane, Airbus-EK-32008, returned from Parma (Italy) with a 4-hour delay. The average age of FlyOne air vessels is 24.4 years, and the company itself ranks the 239th by the age of its air fleet – among 251 companies, said Grigore Petrenco, who named FlyOne planes “flying coffins”.

He wondered: “Why – despite the multitude of accidents with the company, despite the dubious provision of documents for it, despite its worn and shabby air fleet – do the company owners escape controlling organs’ interest so happily?”   

And offered an explanation:  FlyOne, registered in September 2015, was headed by the wife of Minister of Justice Vladimir Cebotari and by the father-in-law of the former GAGA Director Mircea Maleca. Later on, under the pressure of the public opinion, the wife of the DP Minister resigned from the FlyOne leadership, but she was replaced at the steering wheel by the former colleague of Minister Cebotari (the two worked together in Air Moldova). And in spring 2017 FlyOne came to be headed by Mircea Maleca himself.

“The activities of this air company is personally ‘roofed’ [patronized] by the almighty coordinator of the country’s governing coalition, Democratic Party Chairman Vlad Plahotniuc”, stated Grigore Petrenco, who is a member of the previous Moldovan Parliament and an ex-Deputy Chairman of the Unified European Left group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

“Plahotniuc and Cebotari connive at the outrageous lawlessness reigning in this air company. I will shortly address to the civil aviation authorities of the European Union, to whose countries the company used to fly with the above-mentioned ‘coffin’, which vanished from Moldova recently”, stated Grigore Petrenco. He recommended the people who have bought FlyOne tickets to return them to the company for their own safety.

 

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